The Primrose Path
by Foxglove Chant
Summary: I give you the Tributes of District 12: Peeta Mellark and Primrose Everdeen! No one expects tiny Prim to survive the Arena, least of all Haymitch. It turns out that Prim has a few things to say about that. If she can't win by the Capitol's rules, then it's time to change those rules. Prim is about to take Panem by storm.
1. Prologue

"I volunteer!" Katniss shrieked. "I volunteer! I volunteer!" The words ripped from her throat between ragged gasps of air. There was nothing in the world except Prim's pale, scared face.

Strong hands gripped Katniss's arms and pulled her back. "Shh," Gale whispered. "Katniss, you have to be quiet." She struggled in his grip, screaming over and over again to shut out his voice and the truth. "Katniss, you can't volunteer. You're nineteen. Shh, you have to stop yelling. Katniss, the cameras are on us. Katniss! It'll be worse for Prim if you keep screaming. Please, Catnip."

There was nothing in the world except Prim's face. There was nothing in the world.


	2. Chapter 1

Prim stared out the window of the train. It moved so fast that the landscape was blurred, which was how her brain felt. She was alone in the compartment. Peeta had managed to drag a drunken Haymitch off for a private talk – probably about how to survive in the Arena. There was no point in Prim being present for that kind of talk after all. Before they left, Haymitch had managed to offend the fluttery, purple-haired woman so much that she'd stalked off too. So Prim was left alone, with more food in front of her than she'd ever seen in one place in her life, and no appetite.

Nothing that had happened since her name had been called felt real. She had stood frozen in place, and Peacekeepers had come and practically carried her to the stage. The crowd had been silent, except for one girl screaming over and over. Prim hadn't allowed herself to listen.

Slowly, she brought her hand to her collar and touched the pin fastened there. Her fingers felt the smooth circle and the sharp edges of the arrow and the bird. The mockingjay. She closed her eyes and remembered Katniss's brusque fingers fixing it to her blouse. For luck, she'd said, but it hadn't brought Prim luck, or if it had, the luck was bad. Mockingjays weren't for luck, anyway. They were for – Prim opened her eyes suddenly. Mockingjays were for rebellion.

She stood, and went to find Haymitch and Peeta.

* * *

Three days later, Katniss still couldn't face the world. To hell with the world: she couldn't face breakfast. The only reason she was even downstairs was because Gale had stormed into her house and pulled her out of bed. She was sitting in her kitchen, still in the clothes she'd worn to the Reaping, her hair in tangles, a dish of stew steaming in front of her. Oh, and Gale, sitting across from her and glaring in a way she'd never seen before.

"Eat," he ordered. It was the only thing he'd said to her, but he'd said it several times.

The storm inside Katniss had not abated. She was still screaming in her head, but her voice had given out days ago. She couldn't do this. She couldn't go on, supporting a mother who for the first time Katniss understood. They were in agreement, Katniss and her mother. There was no life without Prim. There was nothing left and no reason to do anything at all. It was too much, or too little. She simply couldn't face it.

Gale stood in a single, abrupt motion. His chair clattered to the floor.

Katniss glanced quickly at his face, then down. It was all true – she couldn't do it, couldn't do anything – but most of all, she couldn't fight with Gale. She had nothing to fight with. Slowly, with shaking fingers, she picked up her spoon.

* * *

Much later, Haymitch was finally alone in his hotel room in the Capitol with a bottle of the finest booze money could buy. He thought it was whiskey. Probably it was whiskey. He took another swig, just to be sure. It didn't taste like much. It didn't even burn as it slid down his throat anymore. The only burning he felt now was in his eyes.

Damn that girl, damn her, damn her, "Damn her, damn her, damn her, damn her!"

Haymitch dropped the bottle and collapsed on the floor. He wasn't sure when he'd started shouting out loud. He could still see her, trembling with fear as she stood in front of him and demanded, in so soft a voice he could barely hear her, that she be included in their discussion. Her mild blue eyes accused him of indolence, of drunkenness, of distance and of abandonment. It was all true.

"Damn her, damn her, damn her, damn her." The words ran together until he was simply sobbing. A disgusting, useless mess. He couldn't help them. How could a pathetic wretch like him help anyone? He had never been able to help anyone but himself, and he'd done a pretty poor job of that. The boy with the noble ideals, the girl with innocence shining from her eyes – there was nothing he could do for them. He had learned the hard way that his only advantage, the cleverness he had been so proud of, was only a curse in disguise. Living wasn't better. A quick death and oblivion, that was the best that could be hoped for. And hope – hope was a bitch, too. Hope was what he avoided at all costs. It was what he couldn't give to the two pretty children in the hotel rooms across the hall, no matter how much they pleaded.

No matter what ideas his cursed, clever brain kept suggesting. It was all hope and lies. The best thing he could do for those children was to keep his brilliant ideas to himself and let them die as quickly as possible. Then they'd be the lucky ones, and he'd still be here, chasing oblivion from a bottle.

Haymitch lifted his head and groped around until his hand found the bottle he had dropped. The whiskey had spilled, but there was still some left in the bottom. He kissed the bottle, his only lover, and felt the whiskey's kiss in return, the burning in his throat and eyes.

There was nothing he could do.


	3. Chapter 2

By the time Prim met her stylist, she was scrubbed, sanded, smoothed, and stinging. The prep team had looked alarming, and some of the things they'd done were frankly invasive, but their distant manner had reminded her of her mother treating patients. Bodies were just bodies, after all, when you worked with them every day. The tall stylist was another matter. He looked at her as if he really saw her. She clutched her robe around her but tried to meet his gold-edged eyes steadily.

"Hello, Primrose," he said. "I'm Cinna, your stylist."

"I'm Prim," she corrected in a soft voice.

"Prim," he amended, and sighed. "I know this must be very strange for you, but your body is like a canvas to me. I need to see it in order to do my work. Would you feel more comfortable if I called Venia back in while I do that?"

Prim smiled at him suddenly. He smiled back and his eyes crinkled in a way that made his gold eyeliner almost disappear. "That's okay," she said. She felt more at ease with Cinna's gentle manner than she had with Venia's distance and odd comments. Before he could ask, she removed her robe and set it aside. In spite of her decision to trust him, she was still relieved to find that his gaze on her body was clinical and distracted, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.

"Alright," he said after a moment and handed her the robe. "Let's chat."

The talk held few surprises until the topic turned from the usual costuming practices to what Cinna had in mind. When he mentioned that his chosen theme was coal itself rather than the people who mined it, Prim raised an eyebrow. "Didn't they try that a few years ago?" she asked, "With the tributes who were naked and covered in coal dust?" She'd only been eight or nine at the time, but it had made an impression.

"I have something new in mind," Cinna said, and added firmly, "you will not be naked."

That was the most reassuring thing Prim had heard so far.

"Since you're so young," he continued, "I started rethinking my approach as soon as you were chosen as tribute. The original costume I designed would have suited an older girl, but once I saw you, I realised we had the opportunity to do something really striking with you and Peeta." He grinned suddenly. "How do you feel about fire, Prim?"

* * *

Katniss listened with half an ear as Gale reminded her that the opening ceremony had taken place the night before. She had eaten the stew, bathed, and changed into clean clothes, all with Gale's explicit instructions. Now they were back in her kitchen and he seemed to think he had something important to tell her. Didn't he realise that nothing mattered anymore?

"Since they're in training today, and they don't televise that, they're rerunning clips from the opening ceremony," he said. "Katniss, I know it's hard, but you need to see this. It's like nothing they've ever done before. I think District 12 has a really good team behind them this year." Katniss didn't understand why Gale thought she would care. A good stylist and support team would be helpful normally, but she couldn't remember a child as young as Prim ever winning the Hunger Games. Certainly no one as gentle and innocent ever had.

"Katniss!" He shook her. "Look, I'm just going to put it on. Once you've seen it, we can talk."

He switched the screen on and Caesar Flickerman's familiar face filled the screen. His jovial voice was too alien to Katniss's thoughts, so she tuned it out. Then the image shifted to show the tributes in their chariots. It all looked normal to Katniss as they paraded past the camera, until a flicker of light from the last chariot caught her eye. As the District 12 chariot slowly came into view, Katniss's gaze was fixed to the screen, hungry for Prim's face and some clue to how she was feeling.

Instead of the pale, scared face that she had last seen, though, the girl she saw on the screen was breathtaking.

Prim was very short and slight next to Peeta, but she shone, and it was impossible to look away from her. She was dressed in a white unitard with a subtle sparkle, edging into blue at her arms, legs and throat. She was adorned with a tiara and cloak that streamed behind her in shades of white, blue, and yellow. Next to her, Peeta looked as solid as a mountain, a contrast in black with an answering shimmer. His cloak was in shades of red, orange, and yellow. And both of them were on fire.

Katniss realised she was clutching Gale's arm. She tried to speak and her raw throat responded with reluctance. "They -" she swallowed and tried again. "They set her on fire?" Her voice rose to a hoarse shriek.

"Look at her, Catnip," he said. "She's fine, they're both fine. It's some kind of fake fire the Capitol dreamed up. Looks like flame but doesn't actually burn."

Katniss didn't let go of his arm, but she took a few breaths and looked more closely at Prim's face. Her expression was grave, her eyes huge. The fire around her lit up the night and the girl at its heart was a bright, impossibly tragic figure. She looked so tiny next to Peeta, so delicate, and yet she blazed. Katniss felt a surge of gratitude for the unknown stylist who had done this for Prim. No one had ever made an impression like this before. Prim might even get sponsors, which Katniss hadn't dared to even think about before.

She buried her face in Gale's chest and his arm came up around her shoulders.

"I can't, Gale," she choked out. "I can't hope for her. There's no way she can win." Gale's rough, steady hand stroked her hair. "I know, Catnip," he said. "But I think now she has a chance to survive for a while in the arena – maybe even up to a week or two, if she's clever and lucky. Now we might have a chance to do something about it."

Katniss pushed back against Gale's chest and stared at him, her mind wiped clean by shock.


	4. Chapter 3

Prim had to admit that her talks with Haymitch had not been going well. For one thing, she had yet to see him sober. She was also more than a little dismayed at his continued refusal to make eye contact.

The first time she had gone to talk to him, when they were on the train, he had actually patted her on the head and called her sweetheart. Then he'd wandered off to have another drink. Peeta, however, had stayed and talked to her. She was already inclined to like him. His gift of bread back when her family was starving had been so much more than a meal – and a meal, to a starving person, was a gift beyond repayment. But on top of that, Prim had seen the desperation fade from Katniss's eyes, replaced with the total determination that characterised her sister. In Prim's view, Peeta was responsible, if indirectly, for giving Prim her sister back when she needed her most.

Over the long train ride, she had discovered that the older boy was a good listener too. Without deciding to, she found herself explaining how she'd come to the decision to fight for her life and the half-formed plan she had come up with. Peeta helped her refine her plan, making suggestions and asking a few questions that Prim hadn't thought of. Afterwards, tentatively, she asked him if he would help her carry it out. "Of course," he'd responded, as if he thought that was obvious.

Maybe it was.

Now, it was the morning of their first training session with the other tributes. Prim had woken early – all right, she'd barely slept. It amounted to the same thing. She had some time before breakfast to prepare herself for the day.

The first thing to do was shower. She experimented with the unmarked buttons until she found lilac-scented soap and a steady stream of hot water. She smiled when she saw that her clothes for the day were laid out. The deep blue tunic and leggings would accent her eyes and light hair. Just right. Once her hair was dry, she brushed it until it was smooth and shiny, and found a white hairband to keep it from her eyes. She'd tie it back properly in the arena, of course, but she wasn't in any danger in the training sessions, so the impression she made was more important. Peeta had agreed with her.

Last night, after the opening ceremony, she and Peeta had watched the recaps of the reaping as well as the ceremony, examining each tribute's demeanour and discussing the possibilities. All the Career tributes, from Districts 1, 2, and 4, were right out. Prim didn't like the look of the two from District 3, but Peeta did, so he would talk to them today. Prim wanted to watch the other tributes in person before she approached any, but they were short on time. She thought she would try talking to the boy from District 10, who had a crippled foot, and some of the other girls who weren't too intimidating.

And then there was Rue.

Prim didn't think her plan depended on Rue, not entirely, but she could make an enormous difference. Connecting with Rue was Prim's most important priority for the day. The only thing that was almost as important was making sure none of the Career tributes noticed.


End file.
